Geography

Thailand occupies the western half of the Indochinese peninsula and the
northern two-thirds of the Malay Peninsula in southeast Asia. Its
neighbors are Burma (Myanmar) on the north and west, Laos on the north and
northeast, Cambodia on the east, and Malaysia on the south. Thailand is
about the size of France.

Government

Constitutional monarchy.

History

The Thais first began settling their present homeland in the 6th
century, and by the end of the 13th century ruled most of the western
portion. During the next 400 years, they fought sporadically with the
Cambodians to the east and the Burmese to the west. Formerly called Siam,
Thailand has never experienced foreign colonization. The British gained a
colonial foothold in the region in 1824, but by 1896 an Anglo-French
accord guaranteed the independence of Thailand. A coup in 1932 demoted the
monarchy to titular status and established representative government with
universal suffrage.

At the outbreak of World War II, Japanese forces attacked Thailand.
After five hours of token resistance Thailand yielded to Japan on Dec. 8,
1941, subsequently becoming a staging area for the Japanese campaign
against Malaya. Following the demise of a pro-Japanese puppet government
in July 1944, Thailand repudiated the declaration of war it had been
forced to make in 1942 against Britain and the U.S.

By the late 1960s the nation's problems largely stemmed from conflicts
brewing in neighboring Cambodia and Vietnam. Although Thailand had
received $2 billion in U.S. economic and military aid since 1950 and had
sent troops (paid by the U.S.) to Vietnam while permitting U.S. bomber
bases on its territory, the collapse of South Vietnam and Cambodia in
spring 1975 brought rapid changes in the country's diplomatic posture. At
the Thai government's insistence, the U.S. agreed to withdraw all 23,000
U.S. military personnel remaining in Thailand by March 1976.